New Android image is uploaded (android-root.tar.gz). Same installation instructions apply, so please see the instructions in the previous post. Strange thing for me when testing the image was after startup the screen stays black. When pressing any key the boot process continues. I don't know why this is. When time permits I'll try to fix this.

As mentioned in my previous post, some of you reported having problems using my Android M5-RC14 image. I've looked into it, and although I still don't know what the problem was, I have a working version again.

I'm currently unable to upload a new version, so it will have to wait until tonight. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Flashing starts, and you are asked if you want to flash the kernel, if you want the microdrive to be formatted and if you want the root filesystem to be installed.Accept all questions answering them with y

After flashing is complete, the machine is rebooted. Login with root and type /start to start Android.Have fun, and let me know if you like it

After hours of spitting through traces trying to resolve all errors and searching for differences between the emulator and the Zaurus my conclusion was that the main difference was the way the framebuffer was used. Android uses a panning mechanism (page flipping) for screen updates, and this is currently unsupported in the default pxa2xx framebuffer code of the linux 2.6.23 kernel.

So I tried to add panning support to the framebuffer code, and with success! It needs some debugging though, because there are still some minor problems with the screen updates, but hey, the saga continues, Android on the Zaurus still seems to be a perfect match!

I've build a custom kernel for m5-rc14 and set up an image to run on my Zaurus. On startup, the system ends up with a black screen, just like others have already reported on various places.

So I fiddled a bit with the Android emulator tonight. I thought it might be interesting to see what the differences are between running Android on the emulator and on the Zaurus.

I modified ramdisk.img a bit, so Android doesn't starts up automatically in the emulator and I've also added strace to the image, which can be found in the root(/) directory. The emulator can be started using the modified image by running:

emulator -debug-kernel -console -ramdisk cortez.img

Now the emulator boots up and ends with a prompt. At that point, start Android by running:

/tmp and /cache are added since the previous version, so we have to add them to the Zaurus image as well.

Next thing I did was to rip the emulator file system. This can be done easily by pushing the binutils package to the emulator and archiving the /system, /data and /cache directories using the adb shell command.

Since kernel debugging isn't exactly one of my favorite hobbies, I then created a complete Zaurus (Spitz) image with the kernel used in the previous Android release, just to see what it did. Well, this ends up with a black screen, no bouncing red ball, nothing.

Setting the logging level to 7 or 8 shows lots and lots of errors, mostly related to the binder block device. I guess that's were most changes took place.

I am now in the process of applying the kernel changes. This is rather time consuming, so this could take a while longer. Unfortunately I don't have that much spare time currently. I know AndroidZaurus is also working on this, so maybe we could make this a joined effort .

Google released a new Android SDK recently... sigh, so much to do and so little time. I'll try to get this ported onto my Zaurus shortly, because it's so damn cool. We'll manage I'm sure, just wait and see.

Has someone ripped the file system already, or even better, managed to get the kernel patched successfully?

Anyway, dust off the dev-tools, get the party hats and let's get it on!

I've uploaded a new version of the Android image for the Zaurus SL-C3x00 models. It appeared that there weren't any package managers installed on default. Apart from that the wireless tools and the wpa-supplicant packages were missing as well, which makes it quite difficult to get online. Thanks for pointing that out speculatrix .

Included in this image are following additional packages on default:

update-modules

apt

ipkg

midnight commander

strace

altboot (I kind of like it)

wireless-tools

wpa-supplicant

pcmciautils

Apart from that, you'll find the key settings are applied as described by Android Zaurus. Last but not least I've added his Rotation applet. Great little utility!

The installation instructions are still the same, so I just updated the download links, which can be found in the menu item on the left.

Once again, have fun!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: It seems that there was an error in the gnu-tar version. Please re-download if you had problems

I've uploaded a kernel and minimal console image for the owners of a Zaurus SL-C7x0 and SL-C860. Since I don't have one of these devices myself (my SL-C750 died in a dreadful coffee experiment) I need volunteers to test this.

The same installation procedure applies for the SL-C1000, SL-C7x0 and SL-C860 devices. Instructions and can be found in the previous post or from the menu on the left.